Oh For The Love of Ginger
by Serenity12
Summary: Some shorts based around the doctors younger days, before he became an alien hero to the Universe; starting with why he loves ginger hair so much.
1. Chapter 1

His obsession with the color ginger started when he was a boy.

He'd been at school that day. Strange how even with his species advanced lifestyles, they still felt the need to cram a bunch of children into a single room together and force them to sit still in order to listen to an elder prattle on about this or that; and then, to add to the absurdity, they would actually get mad when a child groaned or wiggled in their seat impatiently. What did they honestly expect from a bunch of tiny bodies crammed with far too much energy and not enough opportunity to expend it?

Regardless of his opinion on the subject, however, he was there. More precisely, he was in The Container, a single seat set close to the teacher's desk that was designed to limit any movement from its victim. It was meant to only be used when a child could not be persuaded to remain quiet and undistracted; for the young doctor, however, it was his permanent assigned seat.

He didn't mean to be disobedient; well, ok, he did, but he certainly meant no _harm_ from it. He just couldn't see why the school was so adamant that its students learn every little detail of every little thing; he yearned to tell them to just tell the basics and get on with it, the rest could be learned through a series of a trial and error. Unfortunately none of his teachers shared in this view.

He'd been sitting stiffly in his seat when, out of nowhere, he felt the area around him loosen ever so slightly. Stunned, but curious, he tried to wiggle his toes inside his shoes, and by golly, it worked! Next came his fingers; just small, unnoticeable squirming ability, but oh it had been more than he had ever hoped for while being in that blasted chair.

The doctor glanced around anxiously; had anyone noticed his new-found freedom? More importantly though; who was responsible for it? That chair had been designed by the head of the school board, it was unlikely that it just stopped working on its own.

As his eyes darted about the room, it happened. For a split second one of the other students took their eyes off of the instructor long enough to lock eyes with him; it was Aenor, one of the more reserved students of their class. She was female, so the doctor tended not to gravitate to her as much as the other boys, but he'd done a crafts project with her not too long ago and remembered her being fairly pleasant to work with. Now, though, she gave him a quick, small smile before re-focusing her attention on the lecture, shifting only slightly to slip something into her pocket.

The doctor had no idea what it was or how Aenor had managed to create it, but one thing was obvious; she was accountable for the chairs temporary failure in its lock system. He had never really looked at her before, as he was now; had never noticed how her eyes were just slightly lighter than the rest of his classmates, or how her nose narrowed a bit at the end. One thing he had noticed before, however, was her bright red hair, always brushed until it shined and placed up in a perky little pony-tail with a silver hair clip to complete the look. Looking at it now, he decided that hair was brilliant; _she_ was brilliant.

It was that day that the doctor fell in love.


	2. Excluded

He was never quite enough, The Doctor.

He wasn't exquisitely handsome like his oldest brother.

He wasn't nearly as clever as the second son.

His sisters were better behaved and far more sociable by Gallifrey standards.

His relationship with his mother was close, but strained. That was about it. He wasn't particularly anything in his little family dynamic: he was merely there, merely existing. Even his own father would allude to how he paled in comparisons to his siblings.

He simply couldn't win them over, even when he put in more effort than all rest.

When everyone grew up and left the nest, he was the one to keep lines of communication open; yet he was rarely ever the one his family sought after.

He simply wasn't enough. No matter how he tried at it, he was never enough. Not worth enough to invest in as his parents had with the other children; not worth enough even to buy clothes for unless the hand-me-downs ceased to fit and the soles in his shoes were falling off.

That was fine.

He was fine with it.

He had his dream of being able to see the stars someday, to travel the Universe and save everyone. He would be worth everything someday.

For now, though, the young doctor kept his head low, didn't complain, and kept about his life. Maybe someday they would take notice.

Maybe.


End file.
